LeBron James Has Nothing to Prove, but He’s Proving It Anyway

LeBron James after the Cavaliers won Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals in overtime. Never a high-volume scorer, James took 73 shots in the first two games.CreditBen Margot/Associated Press

By Scott Cacciola

June 8, 2015

CLEVELAND — After the 11 makes and the 24 misses, after the 16 rebounds and the 11 assists and the 39 points, each of them hard won, LeBron James plopped down on a dais at Oracle Arena on Sunday night and reflected on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ first step in the N.B.A. finals toward a championship.

“If you’re looking for us to play sexy, cute basketball, that’s not us,” he said. “That’s not us right now. Everything is tough.”

He was speaking after a halting, lung-searing victory in overtime at the home of the Golden State Warriors, who limited the Cavaliers to 32.2 percent shooting — and lost.

The grittiness of the game — the court might as well have been coated with mud — made the result even more remarkable. It was a blue-collar win born of sweat and determination, fitting for a group of guys who call Cleveland home, even if they are multimillionaires.

James, the richest of them all, carries the biggest, snazziest lunch pail.

“It just comes from the work ethic,” he said as he supplied even more manna to the masses back in Ohio.

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James has shown a willingness to absorb contact from Warriors defenders, as he did in Game 2 with Klay Thompson, right.CreditJohn G. Mabanglo/European Pressphoto Agency

On Tuesday night, the series, which is tied at one game apiece, will move to Quicken Loans Arena for Game 3. That will be another benchmark in a season full of them for James: his first finals appearance here since 2007, when the San Antonio Spurs swept the Cavaliers in four games.

These finals are shaping up as a rare instance in which James, back in Cleveland after a four-year sabbatical in Miami and already the greatest player of his generation, does not necessarily need to carry his team to a title to enhance his reputation. Merely making the series competitive, which he has done through the first two games by averaging 41.5 points, 12 rebounds and 8.5 assists, ought to be enough against a high-octane opponent like the Warriors, who have Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and a cast of reliable scorers and defenders.

The Cavaliers are undermanned, absent the injured stars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. The end of the bench, featuring old hands like Brendan Haywood, Shawn Marion and Mike Miller, looks more like an AARP convention. Iman Shumpert and J. R. Smith, who have had finer moments since being cast aside by the doyens at Madison Square Garden, combined to shoot 7 of 24 in Game 2. Matthew Dellavedova, thrust into a starting role at point guard, played 42 minutes.

“Our guys love the fact that we’ve been counted out and come into the series being an underdog,” James said.

James, of course, does not consider himself an underdog and probably never has. Coach David Blatt, however, is required to send out five players at a time, and this is not the most impressive assemblage of talent in finals history.

Still, the Cavaliers employ James, and that has been more than enough to make the series highly compelling theater.

“He’s got a taste of that championship feeling,” Ricky Davis, a former teammate of James’s who last played in the N.B.A. in 2010, said in a telephone interview, “and now he’s going after it.”

The contrasting styles of James and the Warriors’ Curry have only added to the luster. While Curry has danced his way through the playoffs like a feather in the wind, seeking daylight for his high-arcing 3-pointers, James has stuck to a more earthbound brand of hoops: resolutely backing down defenders, absorbing contact and using his 6-foot-8, 240-pound frame to muscle the ball to the basket. Yet the series could not be any tighter, each game decided in overtime.

The result has been the most-watched and highest-rated finals broadcast by ABC through two games, according to Nielsen. Nearly 19 million viewers tuned in for Game 2.

Davis, who played with James in 2003, when James was a Cavaliers rookie, recalled that James had spent his early months with the team trying to figure out when to be aggressive and search for his own offense and when to facilitate for teammates. He picked things up quickly.

“There wasn’t a lot you had to explain to him,” Davis said.

Like everyone else, Davis has watched with something that borders on astonishment as James has operated against the Warriors. James has never been a high-volume scorer, but his 35 shots in Game 2 were the most he had attempted since Game 1, when he launched 38.

Davis did not pass up many open looks during his N.B.A. career.

“There are some people who would be scared to take that many shots,” Davis said. “But he has to take them. He has to put this team on his back.”

On Sunday, James manufactured 18 free throws while continuing to prod unheralded teammates like Dellavedova to elevate their play. Afterward, James praised Dellavedova for playing “spectacular” defense on Curry, and it seemed obvious that James — ever the amateur psychologist — was already looking ahead, to Game 3 and beyond. He needs Dellavedova to believe in himself because, despite appearances, James cannot do this by himself, not forever.

“He’s definitely trying to build their confidence,” Davis said. “He does that the way he passes the ball, too. The guy just does everything.”

It has already been a series to savor, and even as James alluded to needing nonstop treatment on his own battery of ailments ahead of Game 3, he offered perspective.

“It’s a maximum of five games left in the N.B.A. finals,” he said. “So I’m ready for whatever.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page B8 of the New York edition with the headline: Nothing to Prove, but Proving It Anyway. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe